Global equities were bought while precious metals and commodities were sold.“Next Sunday marks the fifthanniversary of the fateful day that investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, signaling the start of a frightening financial meltdown.It’s a good time to ponder how the U.S. economy was nearly brought to ruin. But will we? Or are we already forgetting? Consider the stark historical contrast between the 1930s and thisdecade: Years of financial shenanigans in the 1920s, some illegal but many just immoral, conspired with a variety of other villains to bring on the Great Depression. Congress and President Roosevelt reacted strongly, virtually remaking the dysfunctional U.S. financial system, including establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission to protect investors, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to protect bank depositors, and much else. The financial beast was comparatively tamed for almost75 years. Years of disgraceful financial shenanigans in the 2000s, some ilegal but many just immoral, brought on the Great Recession with virtually no help from any co-conspirators.” Alan Blinder, Princeton University professor and former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve, Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2013Next Wednesday the Fed will reveal its much-anticipated “tapering” plans.Japan’s Nikkei news serviceFriday reported that the Administration “was set to name” Larry Summers to replace the retiring chairman Bernanke. And Sunday marks the five-yearanniversary of the failure of Lehman Brothers. Well, it does seem “a good time to ponder how the U.S. economy was nearly brought to ruin” as well as an appropriate juncture to focus again on the role of Monetary Policy.The above excerpt is from Alan Blinder’s Wednesday WSJ op-ed, “Five Years Later, Financial Lessons Not Learned.”“Far from being tamed, the financial beast has gotten its mojo back—and is winning. The people have forgotten—and arelosing. Here are fourexamples. There are others.” Blinder then laments the lack of reform in “mortgages and securitization,” derivatives, the rating agencies and proprietary trading. “In sum, the Dodd-Frank Act is taking on water fast. What can be done to help Americans remember the horrors that led to its passage?”With stock prices near all-time highs and home price inflationback on track, who is keen to “remember the horrors”?Why would anyone today be willing to upset the applecart? With Washington fiscal and monetary stimulus having reflated the asset markets, what limited appetite that existed for so-called “financial reform” has virtually disappeared. It would be laughable if it weren’t so maddening. The GSEs still completely dominate mortgage finance, which implies ongoing market distortions. They are basically as big – and as thinly capitalized – as ever. The nation’s goliath banks have grown only more dominant.With the Fed such a massive buyer of Treasuries, there has been no market discipline imposed upon a spendthrift Washington. A more thandoubling of outstanding federal debt in five years (issued at record low market yields) implies broad market distortions and economic maladjustment. At a record (ballpark) $2.4 TN in assets, the historic inflation of hedge fund industry assets runsunabated. This has propelled the number of billionaires, along with skyrocketing prices for art, collectibles and trophy properties. And at $632 TN (from BIS data), the global derivatives marketplace is as unfathomably monstrous as ever. As for the rating agencies, truth be told, they have little impact on the global Credit Bubble.Mr. Blinder and others would like to believe that we’ve been persevering through a post-Bubble “Great Recession” with parallels to the Great Depression – but with, thankfully, the benefit of wonderfully enlightened policymaking.Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, discussing the 2008 crisis during a Friday morning CNBC appearance, referred to a “massive Credit Bubble that went bust” – “a 100-yearflood with excesses building for years and years.”At risk of sounding “lunatic fringe,” the reality of the matter is we’re suffering these days from a period of mass delusion.U.S. and world GDP have never been greater. Fueled by record securities prices, U.S. householdNet Worth stands today at a record level. U.S. total income in rather short order recovered from 2009’smodest decline. Real estate prices around much of the world are at or near record highs. Total outstanding debt – in the U.S. and globally – is at a record high and inflating.From a systemic standpoint, the notion of “de-leveraging” has been a myth.And for five years nowunprecedented global imbalances have worsened. Chinese and EM Credit Bubbles and attendant Bubble economies have inflated to historic proportions. Indeed, there is a fine line between “frightening financial meltdown” and unleashing history’s greatest inflation of global securities prices. The only justification for the “100-year flood” thesis is wishful thinking.To be sure, the backdrop has virtually nothing in common with the 1930s.As I’ve written previously, if one is searching for parallels, I would look to the 1920’s. In a replay of errors at key junctures during the “Roaring Twenties,” current monetary policymaking would be more appropriately focused on restraining Bubble excess. Instead, it’s the polar opposite approach with ongoing massive experimental inflationary measures.I’m not a fan of Alan Blinder’s framework, and I am averse to historical revisionism: “The financial beast was comparatively tamed for almost75 years. Years of disgraceful financial shenanigans in the 2000s, some illegal but many just immoral, brought on the Great Recession with virtually no help from any co-conspirators.”Seeds for the 2008/09 crisis were being planted many years prior to the “shenanigans in the 2000s.”Vulnerabilities associated with unbridled global Credit, “activist” monetary management and speculative excess go back to Greenspan’s aggressive post-1987 stock market crash reflationary measures. There were the resulting junk bond, M&A and real estate booms and busts that left a deeply impaired U.S. banking system in the early-nineties. There were the (post-reflation) bond market and derivative Bubbles that faltered in 1994. And we cannot forget the spectacular 1990s booms and busts in Mexico, SE Asia, Russia, Brazil and Argentina (to name only a few). The 1998 LTCM collapseexposed egregious leverage and derivative speculations. And then the decade concluded with a wild speculative Bubble in technology stocks and telecom debt. Somehow, in the face of increasingly apparent shortcomings, monetary policy became only more “activist” and experimental.It’s not credible to look at “2000s” (mortgage finance Bubble) excesses in isolation. “No help from any co-conspirators”? Did not Bernanke’s “government printing press” and “helicopter money” monetary ideologies play prominently in the 2002-2007doubling of mortgage debt? Clearly, loose “money” and monetary policy “activism” were fundamental to the previous 25-yearperiod of serial booms and busts. And each bust provoked aggressive reflationary measures in the name of warding off the “scourge of deflation.” Every reflationary cycle further emboldened and inflated the “global leveraged speculating community,” a dynamic that ensured the scope of subsequent booms became bigger and more systemic. Has contemporary inflationist monetary policy not already provenitself immoral?The most important unlearned lesson is that Federal Reserve (and global central bank) monetary inflation and market interventions carry great risks.For 25 years the Fed has repeatedly employed post-Bubble reflationary measures while inflating the greatest Credit Bubble in history. Back in the 1960s, it was said that Alan Greenspan associated the severity of the Great Depression with the Federal Reserve repeatedly placing “Coins in the Fusebox” throughout the Roaring Twenties Bubble period.The latest talk is that the FOMC may be considering adding a lower bound inflation rate target to its list of factors for setting monetary policy.The experimental Fed last year employed the use of an unemployment rate target. So, the Fed could now perhaps state its intention of sticking with aggressive monetary accommodationso long as either unemployment is above a certain rate or inflation remained below a targeted level. The Fed continues its stroll down a very slippery slope.The predominant view holds that an inflation rate of between 2% and 3% is constructive for the economy and supportive of financial stability.Virtually everyone - Fed official, economist and laymanalike – believes a modest and relatively stable level of inflation greases the economic wheels. Contemporary economic doctrine holds that moderate price inflation helps to ensure that borrowers will retain the capacity to service their (devalued) debt. It is taken as a given that any decline in the price level risksunleashing a horrific downward deflationary debt spiral and economic depression. And I would caution that because just about everyone believes somethingdoesn’t ensure that it’s true.It’s a myth that the Fed controls the “money supply.”It is simply a myth that there is some system “price level” within the Federal Reserve's control. Traditionally, the Fed would increase or decrease bank reserves, in the process influencing intra-bank loan rates, bank lending and system Credit growth. And, customarily, bank lending accounted for a major portion of system Credit growth. Throughout much of financial history, inflation was a fairly decent indicator of general Credit conditions and related excess. Inflation, for the most part, provided a reasonable indication of the appropriateness of monetary policy, although it notoriously provided false signals during the “Roaring Twenties” and “Japan in the eighties” Bubbles.In our contemporary age of securitizations, repos, derivatives, GSEs, hedge funds, asset inflation/Bubbles, globalization, “digitalization” and the general proliferation of non-bank finance, focus on an aggregate measure of consumer prices as an indicator of Credit excess, general monetary conditions or the appropriateness of monetary policy is guaranteed to deceive. Higher “inflation” these daysdoesn’t help ensure that borrowers will be able to service their debts.And I don’t believe the Fed and central banks can inflate away the massive (marketable securities) debt loads accumulated by governments around the globe. Rather, monetary policies incentivize behavior that ensures only more acute debt problems down the road. All the talk of near “financial meltdown” in 2008 ignores that the issue back then was chiefly a crisis of confidence in private-sector obligations. For the most part, sovereign debt was the target of panic buying. And virtually insatiable demand for Treasuries ensured massive financial, market and economic support from Washington. Especially with its move to $85bnmonthly QE, Fed policy has been accommodating just the type of excess that risks a more systemic crisis of confidence.There’s now more than20 years of (recent) experience available to illustrate how massive destabilizing growth in Credit and problematic asset Bubbles can coexist with relatively contained inflation in an aggregate measure of consumer prices. As an indicator of financial stability, CPI has already revealed itself as a flawed indicator. At this point, any lower bound inflation target would essentially build upon an array of Fed policy tools, measures and indicators that work in concert to promote financial speculation and Bubbles. And with the Fed prepared to ever gingerly begin pulling back on QE, there is newfound focus on the efficacy of “forward guidance.”The Fed is determined to avoid the 1994 scenario whereby a 25 bpsrate boost incited a problematic spike in yields all along the yield curve. The thinking today is that assurances of a low Fed funds rate target for the foreseeable future will work to anchor longer-term market yields. There has even been Federal Reserve research concluding that QE purchaseshaven’t had a major impact on market yields.Well, I would counter that QE has had enormous market impact. U.S. stocks have returned about 30%since the Fed began ballooning its balance sheet this past November. Junk bond issuance is poised for a record year, with likely the strongest expansion of business borrowings since 2007. Housing prices have jumped double-digits, as overheated conditions reemerge across many markets. Globally, a strong inflationary bias has propelled asset prices generally.Returning back to “forward guidance,” I expect the market to take little comfort from the promise of ongoing near-zero short-term rates. Generally, faith in a persistently low “fed funds” target would place a ceiling on long-term market yields. And, indeed, this dynamic has been in play for years now, in the process fostering major financial leveraging and other speculative excess. And especially after the past year’s broad-based risk market excesses, what really worries the markets these days is a bout of problematic “risk off” de-risking/de-leveraging. The markets are comfortable with, and fully leveraged for, a Fed that won’t be hiking rates anytime soon. Major questions remain, however, as to the availability of a sufficient marketplace liquiditybackstop in the event of market turmoil.I have argued that the “leveraged speculating community” – and securities markets more generally - have been bolstered (and hopelessly distorted) from 20 years of Washington liquiditybackstops. The GSE's playedprominent roles in accommodating bouts of speculative deleveragingstarting back in 1994. In 2006, after revelations of accounting fraud had reined in Fannie and Freddie balance sheet growth, I posited that any serious bout of de-risking/de-leveraging would likely require a massive expansion of Fed holdings. Today, with the Fed’s balance sheet on the way to $4.0 TN – even in the face of ongoing market risk embracement and speculative leveraging – I’m contemplating Fed holdings in the, say, $6.0 TNrange in the event our central bank chooses to accommodate a serious bout of speculative deleveraging.How confident is the marketplace that the Fed would be willing to embark on yet another major escalation of QE?There’s been ample confidence that chairman Bernanke was willing to do whatever it takes. After all, he did recently state the Fed, even after embarking on “tapering,” would “push back” against any market tightening of financial conditions. And the markets seem to be comfortable that Janet Yellen would have no qualms aggressively expanding the Fed’s balance sheet as needed to bolsteremployment and the general economy. Larry Summers? Well, he has already curmudgeonly stated his view that QE has limited benefits.And, really, how cozy should we assume Mr. Summers would be to market speculation and myriad shenanigans?One would not expecthim to fixate on arcane academic models and Bernanke’s monetary theories. I would tend to view Summers as a Keynesian inflationist – but no monetary nut-case. At this point, he’s more the real-world pragmatist than gun-slinging academic theorist. It’s been almost15 years since the LTCM fiasco and the (joining Greenspan and Rubin on the cover of Time magazine’s) “committee to save the world.” I think Summers understands the game along with associated risks.I’ve been assuming that, in preparation for storm clouds gathering on the horizon, the President would seek the services of a street-savvy, seasoned crisis-fighter like Larry Summers.If he is indeed the Administration’s choice, I expect the markets to be somewhat on edge. Will Summers convey that the Fed is willing to backstop the markets, much as his predecessor was so comfortable doing? “Helicopter Larry?” I don’t think so. But it would make for interesting confirmation hearings.

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

– Thomas Sowell

With a few exceptions here and there, crises in government funding don't simply arrive on the doorstep unannounced.Their progress toward the eventual Bang! moment is there for all the world to see. What final misdeed triggers the ultimate phase of the crisis is less predictable, but the root cause is almost always the same: debt. And whether that debt is actually borrowed or is merely promised to the populace, when the market becomes worried that the ability of the government to fund its promises is suspect, then the end is near. Last week we began a series on what I think is an impending crisis in the unfunded pension liabilities of state and local governments in the United States.To talk about the situation using the word crisis can seem a little hyperbolic.The problems are distributed throughout the country, yet not every city or state has significant unfunded pension liabilities. And even those that do can muddle through for very long time before a smoldering problem explodes into an actual crisis. Think Detroit. You could see the crisis building for years and years in the media before it finally reached the breaking point. And Detroit was not the first city to go bankrupt, though it has been the largest. But unless significant action is taken to alleviate the problem of debt, we are going to see even larger cities and then whole states enter a crisis period. And as we will see from the data, we are not talking insignificant states. This week we continue our series on the unfunded liabilities of states and cities. Note: this letter will print a little longer than most, as there are lots of charts and graphs.As we discussed in last week's letter on state pensions, official estimates of accrued liabilitiesunderstate funding shortfalls by conveniently assuming unrealistic investment returns into perpetuity.While official estimates report state-level unfunded liabilities across all 50states at only$1 trillion today, the unfunded liability burden jumps to over$4 trillion if we discount those liabilities at more reasonable expected rates of return..In case you were wondering, the $4.1 trillionfunding shortfall includes only state-run pensions, meaning that funding gaps at local levels of government are not included.We went to great lengths this past week to calculate the total pension gap at both state and local levels across all fiftystates, but we were told the data does not exist – at least not in one place.Many cities and counties invest their funds with state pension plans rather than managing them separately, but the best estimate I could get was that if you included all the separately managed city and county pensions, it might increase the total amount by anywhere from 10 to 20%.Even without another$500 billion to $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities, the implications of this gaping hole in the available pension research are truly mind-blowing, considering that, in extreme cases such as we are seeing in Detroit, local unfunded liabilities may become obligations of the states for purely political reasons.So we are stuck looking at the problem from a state-run-pension perspective, knowing that the actual shortfall could be even larger. If anyone knows of better sources for this data, I would really appreciate hearing about them.

The Aggregate or the Particular?It may be tempting to look at aggregate pension shortfalls at the national level, but these shortfalls really amount to a state-by-state issue that will ultimately force troubled states to (1) increase taxes, (2) cut public services, and/or (3) reduce retirement benefits for current and already retired public employees. Cities and counties like Detroit (or Chicago?) that manage their own pensions and are underfunded will confront the same set of choices.Making matters even more complicated, not all states can legally cut public employee retirement benefits.Illinois, Alaska, Louisiana, Hawaii, Michigan, Arizona, and New York (shown in red below) all have clauses in their state constitutions that protect public employee defined-benefit pension plans. While most states can reduce pensions to address their budget deficits, these seven must first amend their state constitutions. As you can see, several of these states are at the bottom of the pack in terms of funding ratios, but Illinois is the most vulnerable. (Funding ratios use the more conservative model suggested by Moody's and GASB, as we talked about last week.)At only24%funded, according to Moody's new methodology, Illinois is the single-most underfunded state in the union – the worst of an entire basket of bad apples.This week will focus primarily on Illinois, but we will cast our eyearound the country in coming weeks.The state of Illinois'sfive state-level pensions (TRS, SERS, SURS, JRS, & GARS) report current accrued liabilities at $146 billion, but the state has set aside only$63 billionto cover future benefits.According to these official estimates (which are already a year old), the $83 billionshortfall in unfunded liabilities leaves the state’s pensions only 43%funded, on average. Unfortunately, the real numbers are far worse.According to Moody's new methodology, which discounts future liabilities using the more reasonable rate of return on high-grade corporate bonds (about 4%today), current accrued liabilities tally to more like$272 billion.These figures drop the official43%funding ratio to only24%...Official estimates of accrued liabilities understate funding shortfalls by assuming unrealistic investment returns into perpetuity.Over the pastfive- and ten-yearperiods, the fiveIllinois state pensions have discounted (underreported) their future liabilities by assuming rates of return between 7.0% and 8.5%. Every one of the state pension plans has significantly underperformed its return goals; and as we demonstrated last week, the next decade may be even more difficult from a returns perspective. Expecting more than an average of 4%nominal returns in the coming decade, given today's starting point, requires a large dollop of optimism.When you look at the plans'five-year returns, note that these funds had the benefit of a 140%US bull market over the last four years, and their ten-yearreturnshad the benefit of two bull markets and justonebear market(though it was a savage one)..The Illinois Policy Institute estimates the state pensions would need to earn a compound annual return of 19% from now through 2045 to make up the funding gap, while the markets may offer no more than 4% through the mid-2020s.Not even David Swensen at Yale can generate that kind of alpha. To reach their expected returns in a low-return environment, investment managers of these pensions would need to deliver300 to 450 basis points of alpha, which would place themamong the finest asset allocators in the world. Their recent trackrecord suggests otherwise.I seem to remember that it was only a fewyears ago that I was writing that pension funding shortfalls in Illinois were a mere$50 billion.The plans' continuedlackluster performance has nowmade the problem much worse, and any additional underperformance will lead to even larger funding shortfalls.

Nothing But Bad Choices

To ease their shortfall, Illinois is going to have to find an additional$82 billionover the nextten years, if you believe their optimistic return projections.The more realistic projectionsuggests they will need to find$210 billion. That works out to $8-$10 billion a year for the nextten years. Of course, every year they continue to underfund and underperform makes that number bigger, but let's be charitable and assume the problem won't get worse. Let's analyze what these numbers mean.Illinois is projecting approximately$35 billion of revenue for fiscal year 2014. Of this, 74%comes from individual income taxes (45%), sales taxes (21%), and corporate taxes (8%). The state of Illinois increasedindividual and business income taxrates in January 2011 to their current levels. These tax rates are set to roll back in January 2015 unless lawmakers vote to make them permanent. The first linebelow is individual, and the second line is business income tax rates.

Having to vote to make already high tax rates permanent will make it difficult to then vote for even higher taxes (or at least one would think so).Let me quote directly from Gov. Pat Quinn's speech when he delivered the 2014 fiscal year budget. But this is also an honest budget that reflects our fiscal challenges … pays down the backlog of bills … and addresses funds that have been under-appropriated for too long.There are no gimmicks or fake numbers in this budget. This budget holds the line on discretionary spending, while fully meeting our skyrocketing pension obligations.Inaction on comprehensive pension reform has left our state with less revenue for our most important priorities.Without pension reform, within two years, Illinois will be spending more on public pensions than on education. As I said to you a year ago, our state cannot continueon this path. Pension reform is hard. But we've done hard things before.Maybe it's something in the water that makes Illinois politiciansreally good with rhetoric, but their math is a little hard for this Texas country boy to get his head around.The governor talks about a hard-fought agreement that saves$900 million over three years on pensions, but I look at this budget and can't seem to find the part about fully funding skyrocketing pension obligations.Pension contributions are planned to increase by $929 million, from $5.1 billion in FY2013 to $6.0 billion in FY2014.This falls short of the annual pension payout by $2 billion, meaning that unfunded liabilities will get worse every year until there is a fix. This shortfall could become a massive problem over time if the state government cannot significantly increase revenues to coverat least the growing annual payouts (or cut spending on public services or restructure pension liabilities). The state of Illinois projects that annual pension payouts will increase from $8 billiontoday to around$15 billion by 2022, to $20 billion by 2030, and to $30 billion by 2045. That is a total of $632 billion for pension benefits between now and 2045. For which the state of Illinois has set aside somethinglike 10% of that total. How could anything possibly go wrong?If the state were to increase individual income tax rates to cover these outlays, we would expect to see individual income tax rates rise from the current 5% to 12.5% by 2045.The longer Illinois waits to increase pension contributions, the bigger the unfunded liabilities will be and the higher tax rates will need to climb to make up for the shortfall. It may be painful to face the funding shortfall today, but the cost will balloon to enormous proportions in just a few years if lawmakers delay.Note again that the Illinois stateconstitution does not allow the state to reduce pension benefits.I will grant the governor this: looking at the budget, there have been significant cuts in many areas of spending. But the "easy" work has been done. While pension contributions made uproughly6% of operating expenditures in 2008, they account for 19%today. That number will grow dramatically if left unchecked. Looks like we are already starting to see the fallout from recent education cuts.Going back to the original proposition, the state of Illinoisneeds to find an additional $20 billion a year to adequately fund its future pension obligations, or it is going to be digging an ever deeper hole every year.But where do you find an extra$20 billion a year in a $35 billionbudget? This is the sort of situation that is typically described by politicians as "somebody else's problem," but to our children it will be their problema.

Promises Made, Promises Broken

There are other states besides Illinois that have significant unfunded pension liabilities. As this letter is already getting a little longish, I will leave you with just a taste of what we willcover next week. There are several ways besides the absolute numbers that you can look at unfunded liabilities. You could divide the total liabilities by the number of people in the state, giving you the debt on a per capita basis. In a fascinating report, a group called State Budget Solutions did that work for us.Quoting:The states with the largest unfunded liabilityper person are Alaska ($32,425), Ohio ($24,893), Illinois ($22,294), Connecticut ($21,378) and New Mexico ($20,530).On the other hand, the states with the smallest unfunded liability per person are Tennessee ($5,676), Indiana ($6,581), North Carolina ($6,874), Nebraska ($7,212) and Arizona ($7,688).Another way to look at the debt problem is as a percentage of each state's gross state product, similar to the national GDP. That breaks down as follows:Yes, there are states worse than Illinois, depending on how you view the data.Next week we'll get into this a little deeper.I would like to invite those of my readers who have done the research on their particular city, county, or state to send me their data.If we get enough, we'll create one larger data set and post it.Unfunded liabilities have the potential to become just as big a problem as subprime credit or European sovereign debt. The problems are mounting, and while in most areas they can be dealt with today, the longer the solutions are put off, the less possible they will be.Either taxpayers will have to pay more, or benefits will have to be changed, or other services that people expect from local governments will have to be severely curtailed.That is the range of choices.None of them will sit well. Onegroup in Illinois proposes, as a partial solution, to freeze all cost-of-living adjustments for current retirees, to abandon defined-benefit plans for current employees in favor of defined-contribution plans, to raise the retirement age, and to take otherdrastic steps.Last year a number of liberal cities in California, including San Jose and San Diego, voted to alter their pension plans rather than increase taxes.There comes a timewhen taxpayers simply say "No more!" On the other side of that equation are people who worked all their lives in expectation of a specific pension payout when they retired. To them a deal is a deal.There is no surer way to upset me personally than not to live up to a deal that has been agreed upon.The anger of government employeeswhen threatened with the loss of their benefits is something I can readily understand. But I also get the plight of taxpayers who seepolitical favors bought and sold using their money. And I get more than merely frustrated with politicians who pile financial commitments on the shoulders of our children so that they themselves don't have to figure out how to pay for them. I think most people feel the same way about these matters, but here areno good solutions.Ask Detroit.They put off the hard decisions, and now they're in bankruptcy court. The bankruptcy manager has threatened retirees with a far larger cut in their pensions than they might have negotiated a few years ago. City services have been cut, roads go unrepaired, most of the streetlights don't work, and there is not nearly enough money to cover fire and police services. That's what happens when you don't make the hard choices today. They become tomorrow's bad choices and next year's disastrous choices.Ask Greece.

The Bull's in Charge

Last week I participated in a great webinar, "How Long Can the Bull Run?A Discussion on Long/Short Equity," with members of the investment team at Altegris. We engaged in a robust discussion on the equity markets and provided a much-needed perspective on the role that a long/short equity strategy can play in a well-diversified portfolio. We talked about some strategic moves investors can makenow, whether their long-term outlook is bullish or bearish. My old friend Matt Osborne, one of the founding partners of Altegris, inserted a recent cover from Barron's magazine into his PowerPoint presentation. I am sure I saw a little mischief in his eyes, and I'm pretty sure he did it just to tweak me. I had just outlined a rather cautionary viewpoint, laying out the case that hedging at this point might prove useful, and Matt thought he should remind me that the consensus is still quite bullish. I thought a very interesting discussion ensued. "The Bull's in Charge!"indeed..I was reminded of a recent graph from my friend John Hussman, which featuresthreeother Barron's covers. Some would say a Barron's cover like these is an invitation to the gods of the market to have a good laugh. I, however, am of the belief that these deities have no sense of humor whatsoever. Be that as it may, here is John's graph. I'll let you note the dates..

Your inspired by all the entrepreneurial spirit I saw analyst,John MauldinCopyright 2013 John Mauldin. All Rights Reserved.

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.